From RFQ to Purchase Order

The actual act of buying. Two ERPNext documents drive it: Request for Quotation and Purchase Order. RFQ is optional; PO is the commitment.

Request for Quotation

An RFQ is how you go out to multiple suppliers with the same shopping list and let them compete. You'd raise an RFQ when:

You're buying a new item and don't have a default supplier yet.
You're buying enough to justify shopping around (bulk fabric for a season, a new trim program).
A brand audit or your own internal policy requires multi-quote sourcing above a threshold.

The flow:

Create an RFQ. Add items and target quantities.
Add suppliers (typically 3+). Each supplier becomes a recipient.
Submit and email the RFQ to suppliers. Each supplier sees only their own copy.
Suppliers respond with Supplier Quotations — either through the Supplier Portal or by emailing back rates that you enter on a Quotation against the RFQ.
Compare quotations. Pick the supplier (or split across suppliers).
Create a Purchase Order against the winning Quotation.

Small reorders of familiar items skip all of this and go straight to PO. RFQ is for when sourcing actually matters.

Purchase Order

The PO is the legal commitment to buy. It says "we're buying these items, in these quantities, at this rate, from this supplier, to be delivered by this date."

The fields that matter:

Supplier — references the Supplier master.
Transaction Date and Schedule Date — when the order is placed and when delivery is expected.
Items — one row per item being bought. Item code (typically a specific variant — see Item attributes for fashion), quantity, rate, target warehouse for receipt.
Currency — defaults from the supplier; override if needed.
Payment terms — defaults from the supplier.
Taxes and Charges — inherited from the tax template; review for cross-border purchases.
Terms and Conditions — boilerplate that travels with the printed PO.

Getting there

Awesome bar: Cmd/Ctrl + K → type purchase order → pick Purchase Order List

Click path: Desk → GarmentFlow → Logistics → Purchasing card → Purchase Order

The PO lifecycle

A PO moves through:

Draft — being put together.
To Receive and Bill — submitted; goods not yet received and not yet invoiced.
To Receive — invoiced but not received (rare; usually means an advance invoice).
To Bill — received but not invoiced.
Completed — fully received and fully invoiced.
Closed — manually closed even though incomplete (used to stop the receipt clock on an order you've decided to abandon).

The status is what the workspace's "Late Purchase Orders" quick list and "Pending Material Requests" KPIs key off.

Sending the PO to the supplier

The PO print format produces a branded PDF using your letterhead. Email it from the form (the supplier's primary contact is the default recipient), or print it for hand-delivery. Suppliers with portal access can also see and acknowledge the PO from the Supplier Portal.

Common patterns

A few PO patterns specific to a garment factory:

Per-batch fabric POs. Some brands' fabric is ordered per production batch. Create one PO per batch, with the Tech Pack's per-style consumption × order quantity as the PO quantity. Easy to reconcile; small over- or under-orders surface immediately.
Standing trim POs. Trims like core thread colors and standard polybags get ordered against standing POs with monthly or quarterly schedule dates. Receive against the standing PO as deliveries come in.
Blanket POs for subcontract services. For external services (wash, embroidery), set up a Blanket Order at a pre-negotiated rate, then run actual subcontracting flows against it.

What to do next

The PO commits the order. The next step — receiving the goods — is on the Receiving and invoicing page.